About Me

Friday, November 21, 2008

Bah-Bah-Bah BAH BAH

Last night, I saw a friend of mine playing keyboards in a band. I've never seen a rock performance by any of my friends before; it was fun. For one song, my friend basically got to play a waltz by Bach (I think he said), so that was one of the most enjoyable.

I have to admit, I really like synths, and I'm glad that when I went to see this performance from a friend of mine, he happenened to play the keyboards. Sometimes, I have trouble figuring out exactly what the guitar part is in a song, but I'm usually able to recognize the synth part really easily. Of course, the part of any song that catches my attention the most tends to be the vocals (hence my fondness for pop music over classical), but, next to that, the synths make a big difference for me.

Coincidentally, after my friend's band played, the venue happened to play "Common People." It was extremely exciting for me; "Common People," after all, is the first contemporary song I ever really fell in love with, way back in eleventh grade. Furthermore, I would say that Candida Doyle's synth playing is one of the key elements of Pulp's style (and something I really miss on Jarvis's solo release). Pulp went through different stages and never only performed one style of song. Candida was good throughout all of this, but I have to say that the swirly synth sound (that's how I think of it) that she produces on "Common People" and similar tracks (the short, poppy, disco-y 90s Pulp tracks) seems to be fundamental to my idea of Pulp. When I think of what makes Pulp Pulp, next to Jarvis's singing, it's Candida's swirly synths.

Bonus Completely Unrelated Pulp Video:

Everyone should watch the spoken word version of "Babies!" Even though it is completely unrelated!